Episode 168: Andrea Smalley, Wild By Nature: Colonists and Animals in North America

When we study the history of colonial North America, we tend to focus on European colonists and their rivalries with each other and with Native Americans. But humans weren’t the only living beings occupying North America during the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries.

Rivalries existed between humans and animals too. And these human-animal rivalries impacted and shaped how European colonists used and settled North American lands.

During our investigation, Andrea reveals the different kinds of wild animals colonists encountered in North America and what they thought about these animals; How specific animals like the beaver, wolf, and fish impacted and shaped early English colonists’ ideas about what it meant to tame and possess land in North America; And, how North American animals served as tools Native Americans used to stymie English and Anglo-American colonization.

What You’ll Discover

Environmental history

The animals early North American colonists encountered

How European colonists reacted to North American animals

How and where we find animals in the historical record

How animals impacted English settlement of the Chesapeake and Southeast

Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676

How the fur trade impacted and shaped Bacon’s Rebellion and English settlement

How wolves challenged English ideas about legal possession

Ways fish challenged English ideas about legal possession

Early American regulation of fishing rights and waterways

Animals as tools of resistance against English and Anglo-American colonization

Time Warp Question

In your opinion, what might have happened if say the Spanish, French, or Dutch–instead of the English and their descendants– had been largely responsible for colonizing most of North America? How would changing the dominant settlers’, and therefore the dominant cultural perception of wildlife, change the history of North American colonization?